Life as Usual - up to April 2nd

Haven’t really written in a while but my excuse is I’ve been busy adjusting to life as a student in Wellington- I LOVE it. I’ve really learned my way around the city and love how its so easy to walk anywhere I want to go. I’ve also really bonded with my roommates, Bridie and Devlyn, who are very similar to me personality wise and whom I absolutely love! I feel so lucky to be living with them and they have been so helpful and understand in my whole adjustment process. One weird thing I’ve noticed though is that they don’t rinse the dishes – they just set them on the rack to dry all soapy which is apparently normal here but very strange to me. I’m definitely missing home, but I’m not homesick in the normal sense. I can’t wait to go back to California and DC but at the same time I’m already dreading leaving New Zealand! I couldn’t have picked a more wonderful place to study for a semester.

I’ve been doing good so far with the lists so I guess I’ll just continue with that lol. Here’s what I’ve been up for these past weeks (which have gone by WAY to quickly!)

- Classes have been pretty average, nothing to special or different, though I’m not used to the whole big lecture hall thing. I love my sustainable architecture class though, and physics is kicking my butt but I’m hanging in there. I mainly just feel like I stand out based on the way I dress. Basically every girl wears some sort of skirt or dress with tights or leggings and some flowery shirt and big baggy sweater. I on the other had am a fan of the jeans and t-shirt look. I don’t really mind, I just feel like I get some weird looks sometimes.

- Bridie ( who loves politics) invited Kelly and I to a youth Labour Party meeting. The meeting was inside the parliament building and we even got a tour of the building lead by an M.P. (Member of Parliament) before the meeting. After we went to this bar called The Backbench where there is a debate between three MP’s every Wednesday and its filmed live. That night Grant (the MP that gave us the tour) was debating so we decided to go watch. It was so crowded but we got there early enough to get a table. It was super fun and interesting though, I learned a lot about New Zealand politics. And the bar was very cool, there were figurines of past MP’s and prime ministers up on the wall the Weta had made (they did costume design stuff for Lord of the Rings and Narnia).





- Bridie also took me to my first New Zealand protest. The National party, which is the conservative party, is trying to open up certain sections of national parks to mining so we were protesting against that. It was a pretty big crowd- maybe a hundred or so- but very calm and relaxed atmosphere. People had signs but there wasn’t any rude shouting or yelling going on, basically just everyone listening to the various speakers at the podium. Again, way different then any protest that would happen in the US. And a bunch of MP’s were there, standing by the podium or just filtering through the crowd. Grant came up and even said hi to Bridie and I (he knows her from the youth Labour Party group). I can’t imagine any US political figure casually chatting up people in the middle of a protest or at any time in fact. It made me feel like he really cared and that the government was so separated from the rest of society.





- Went with my roommates to Wellington’s Relay for Life- we walked to 2-3am shift for the Labour party team. I met a ton of cool people and tried to teach them how to speak with an American accent, it was pretty fun but then again they had a good laugh at my attempts to sound like a kiwi.

- Went to a rugby game tonight- Christchurch Crusaders vs Wellington Hurricanes. Very fun, enthusiastic crowd. Still have no idea how the game works but I’m learning.




- General other things that I’ve discovered- I love MILO, which is a lot like ovaltine and I now have a warm glass of it every night. Pineapple lumps are a candy with the worst name ever but are the BEST. I miss cereal in the US, they don’t really have much of selection here. The coffee is excellent, again I probably over-indulge myself. I miss Mexican food, Chinese food, hotdogs and hamburgers none of which really exist here. But I love the fruit and veggie market that is downtown every weekend. Kelly also found out the hard way that they don't really say "God bless you" when someone sneezes here. She said it someone in the library then to someone in her class and both times they gave her the weirdest look, like she was some religious nut. I asked my roommates and turns out you would only really say that to a someone you knew..oh well.

Now I’m about to head off on adventure number 2! Tomorrow (actually in less then 6 hours) Kelly and I are off to Sydney for 4 days, then she’s meeting her sister in Japan and I’m flying back to New Zealand to visit my roommates in Hamilton (which is about in the middle of the North Island). I’m super excited to see Australia and I can’t wait to see where my roommates live. We are going to take little day trips around the North Island, I’m pretty pumped to see more of the country. The second week of my Easter Break I’ll be back in Wellington, studying for my physics midterm and writing a French essay, yippee.